A Little Devotion
by GreyLadyBast
Summary: Letting go is the hardest thing, as Frodo's cousin Clover Proudfoot discovers. Total Mary Sue, written to see if a good MS is possible. Sap in a high degree. You have been warned.


Disclaimer----Frodo et al belong to Tolkien Enterprises. Clover Proudfoot is mine, and yes, she's a Mary Sue of sorts. She's meant to be.  
  
A/N----This has been taken down, changed and reposted to tone down some of the less believable elements of Clover Proudfoot. It's meant to stand alone, though I DO hope to someday complete her entire adventure (some of the beginning is already posted as two separate stories, pending revision and combining, if you're interested). The HA Mary Sue challenge this is intended for ends much too soon for me to tell this whole thing. Besides, I got curious how short a MS could be and still be a Mary Sue. This is my answer.  
  
A Little Devotion  
  
  
  
Clover Proudfoot puttered around the kitchen of Bag End, making tea for her cousin and good friend Frodo Baggins. With Sam and Rosie taking Elanor out for the day, Clover finally had the chance to speak her piece. Now that the time had come, however, she found herself unable to do more than look at Frodo as he fiddled with the elf-stone around his neck.  
  
"Why do you stare at me so, Clover?" Frodo asked, smiling in that faded way of his. Everything about Frodo seemed faded these days, ever since he'd returned from His Errand. Oh, Clover knew all about that, of course. She'd gotten the story first from old Mr. Bilbo in Rivendell, and more from that pretty elf-lady Galadriel, in Lorien. Clover had met them during her own travels, chasing after Frodo. She'd know something was up when he'd left so unexpectedly with Sam Gamgee. Then, more cousins, Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took, turned up missing. That was all the shrewd lass needed to send her trailing after the lot of them. She's hoped to keep the lads out of trouble, but with one thing and another, she'd found troubles of her own that forever kept her just missing them. The lost and weary hobbit lass eventually found her way to the Golden Wood, where Galadriel warned her that Things Had Changed. The wise elf-lady was sadly very correct.  
  
"Clover?" Frodo asked again, startling his friend out of her reverie. Clover smiled softly at him.  
  
"It's nothing, Frodo," she replied, pouring them both some tea. As she handed him his tea and settled down across from him, she thought again. "No, actually, it is something. Something very big that's been weighing on my mind for some time now," she said. Frodo didn't speak, just sat quietly and sipped his tea. Clover took a deep breath. She let it out and took another, staring at the hobbit she'd loved and argued with since they were children playing together at Adventures. "I came here today to speak out to you. I've been waiting and waiting for you to speak. Ever since Sam married Rosie, I thought it just a matter of time before you realized that I didn't follow you all over the better part of Middle-Earth in order to remain Just Friends. But you never spoke, so I decided it was time and past for me to speak to you." There, she'd said it.  
  
Frodo looked startled, and distinctly uncomfortable. He opened up his mouth to say something, but Clover wasn't finished. She held up her hand, effectively shutting him up with the gesture she'd used since girlhood. "I think I know what you're about to say, and you're right," she said. She took his right hand, caressed the stump of finger gently. Clover looked Frodo deep in his big blue eyes. "You're hurt, Frodo, I know. Hurt deep in ways I can only guess at and can't heal, no matter how hard I try or how much I love you." She paused there, to wipe away a tear she didn't remember shedding. Again Frodo made as if to speak, and again Clover bade him be quiet. "I've written to the Elves, to Elrond and Galadriel and Gandalf, and we're all agreed. It's time for them to leave from the Grey Havens, and you must go with them. Perhaps in the West you can find the healing you cannot get in the Shire."  
  
Frodo looked at once pained and relieved. He'd been thinking the same things, but found he couldn't bring himself to leave. He wanted so badly to Live Happily Ever After in the Shire, to see Elanor and Sam and Rosie's future children grow up, to settle down and have children of his own. He'd known for ages that was impossible, but knowing a thing was not the same as acting on the knowledge. And here now was Clover, bossily arranging things just the way he needed them arranged, same as she'd always done. What had been annoying in childhood was a comfort now. Frodo smiled at Clover, his first true smile since Elanor was born and one of only a very few since his return. "You're quite a lass, Clover," he said. "You'll make some lucky hobbit a fine wife someday."  
  
"Don't go getting all mushy on me, Frodo Baggins," Clover replied haughtily. "I've left you the hardest part. You still have to tell Sam what you're up to!" She did not tell Frodo there was no other hobbit in Middle-Earth for her, did not say she would remain a spinster until she died. That was not something Frodo needed to be burdened with right now, so she said nothing. She simply got up and hugged the best hobbit in the Shire tight, kissed him lightly, then left as Sam, Rosie and Elanor returned.  
  
Shortly after that, Frodo left for the Grey Havens. Clover did not go with him, she had said her goodbyes already, and did not wish to intrude on Sam's time with his Master. But every day until the day she died, as the sun set she looked to the West and whispered one of the few Elvish phrases she knew-"melamin"-"my love." 


End file.
